Harry Quelch

Published:Pravda TrudaNo. 1, September 11, 1913;Nash PutNo. 16, September 12, 1913.

      Signed:V. I..

      Published according to thePravda Trudatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 19,

      pages369-371.Translated:The Late George HannaTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

OnWednesday, September 17 (September 4, 0. S.), Comrade
Harry Quelch, leader of the British Social-Democrats, died in London. The
British Social-Democratic organisation was formed in 1884 and was called
the Social Democratic Federation. In 1909 the name was changed to
Social-Democratic Party, and in 1911, after a number of independently
existing socialist groups amalgamated with it, it assumed the name of the
British Socialist Party.

HarryQuelch was one of the most energetic and devoted workers in the
British Social-Democratic movement. He was active not only as a
Social-Democratic Party worker, but also as a trade-unionist. The London
Society of Compositors repeatedly elected him its Chairman, and he was
several times Chairman of the London Trades Council.

Quelchwas the editor ofJustice,[2]the weekly organ of the British Social-Democrats,
as well as editor of the party monthly journal, theSocial-Democrat.

Hetook a very active part in all the work of the British
Social-Democratic movement and regularly addressed party and public
meetings. On many occasions he represented British Social-Democracy at
international congresses and on tile International Socialist
Bureau. Incidentally, when he attended the Stuttgart International
Socialist Congress he was persecuted by the Wurtemburg Government, whichexpelledhim from Stuttgart (without trial, by police order, as an
alien) for referring at a public meeting to the Hague Conference as a
“thieves’ supper”. When, the day following Quelch’s expulsion, the
Congress resumed its session, the British delegates left empty the chair on
which Quelch had sat, and hung a notice on it bearing the inscription:“Here sat Harry Quelch, now expelled by the Wurtemburg Government.”

TheSouth Germans often boast of their hatred for the Prussians because
of the Prussian red tape, bureaucracy and police rule, but they themselves
behave like the worst Prussians where a proletarian socialist is concerned.

Thehistorical conditions for the activities of the British
Social-Democrats, whose leader Quelch was, are of a very particular
kind. In the most advanced land of capitalism and political liberty, the
British bourgeoisie (who as far back as the seventeenth century settled
accounts with the absolute monarchy in a rather democratic way) managed in
the nineteenth century tosplitthe British working-class
movement. In the middle of the nineteenth century Britain enjoyed an almost
complete monopoly in the world market. Thanks to this monopoly the profits
acquired by British capital were extraordinarily high, so that it was
possible for some crumbs of these profits to be thrown to the aristocracy
of labour, the skilled factory workers.

Thisaristocracy of labour, which at that time earned tolerably good
wages, boxed itself up in narrow, self-interested craft unions, and
isolated itself from the mass of the proletariat, while in politics it
supported the liberal bourgeoisie. And to this very day perhaps nowhere in
the world are there so many liberals among the advanced workers as in
Britain.

Inthe last quarter of the nineteenth century, however, things began to
change. Britain’s monopoly was challenged by America, Germany, etc. The
economic basis for the narrow, petty-bourgeois trade-unionism and
liberalism among British workers has been destroyed. Socialism is again
raising its head in Britain, getting through to the masses and growing
irresistiblydespitethe rank opportunism of the British
near-socialist intelligentsia.

Quelchwas in the front ranks of those who fought steadfastly and with
conviction against opportunism and a liberal-labour policy in the British
working-class movement. True, isolation from the masses sometimes infected
the British Social-Democrats with a certain sectarianism. Hyndman, the
leader and founder of Social-Democracy in Britain, has even slipped into
jingoism. But the party of the
			   Social-Democrats[1]has fought him on this, and over the whole of Britain the Social-Democrats,
and theyalone, have for decades been carrying on systematic
propaganda and agitation in the Marxist spirit. This is the great
historical service rendered by Quelch and his comrades. The fruits of the
activities of the Marxist Quelch will be reaped in full measure by the
British working-class movement in the next few years.

Inconclusion we cannot refrain from mentioning Quelch’s sympathy for
the Russian Social-Democrats and the assistance he rendered them. Eleven
years ago the Russian Social-Democratic newspaper had to be printed in
London. The British Social-Democrats, headed by Quelch, readily made their
printing-plant available. As a consequence, Quelch himself had to “squeeze
up”. A corner was boarded off at the printing-works by a thin partition to
serve him as editorial room. This corner contained a very small
writing-table, a bookshelf above it, and a chair. When the present writer
visited Quelch in this “editorial office” there was no room for another
chair....

[1]Theparty here referred to is the British Socialist Party, founded in
1911.—Ed.

[2]Justice—a weekly founded in London in 1884 as the central
organ of the Social Democratic Federation of Great Britain; from 1911
onwards it was the organ of the British Socialist Party. When the party was
split in 1916 it became the organ of the minority of social chauvinists; it
continued publication until 1925.

In1902 and 1903, Lenin’sIskrawas printed by theJusticepress.